Briefly, the invention relates to building ventilation, in general; to ventilation of livestock buildings, in particular; and, specifically, to emergency ventilation of livestock buildings.
Maintenance of a fresh supply of air at a proper temperature in a livestock building is extremely important. An important predicate of modern controlled-environment animal husbandry is maximization of animal density in order to minimize production costs. In such instances of maximum animal density, failure of the building's normal ventilation system could result in a rapid change in either or both the environment temperature or gas content to a level outside the safe limits of the animals in the building and ultimately result in the death of a large number of animals. Even small scale animal raisers such as the average American farmer frequently experience emergency conditions in their livestock buildings which if uncorrected are fatal to their stock. These latter fatalities, though orders of magnitude lesser in absolute numbers, can in fact be more disastrous to the small stockman or grower than a loss of many times more animals to a large scale grower or stockman.
A general object of the invention is an emergency ventilation system for a livestock building.
Another object of the invention is a ventilation system which is responsive to a deviation from a prescribed norm in a building environment to activate an emergency ventilation system.
A further object of the invention is a ventilation system which is responsive to the temperature of a livestock building exceeding a prescribed limit to open doors, windows, or other building openings.
An additional object of the invention is a ventilation system which is responsive to a building electrical power outage to provide emergency ventilation.
Still another object of the invention is a ventilation system which is unresponsive to short term or intermittent electrical power outages yet responsive to a long term outage to provide emergency ventilation.
Yet a further object of the invention is an emergency ventilation system operative from stored energy.
Even another object of the invention is an emergency ventilation system operative by compressed air.
An additional object of the invention is to provide an emergency ventilation system based on scientific principles which are readily and easily understood, and which is easily and readily installed, operated and maintained.